Monetary Monday: Baby stuff

I am in desperate need of new car seats.  Besides being set to expire, having been passed down from boy to boy to boy really takes a toll on the fabric.  I think the one was blue when we bought it, its now an ugly shade of canal water. In my searches for the cheapest best car seat I saw one for my brother, the one who is expecting.  They don't have a lot of money they can spend on a car seat because she lost her job recently.  She has her heart set on a carrier stroller combo.  Unfortunately those are much more expensive and you then have to upgrade to a convertible car seat, meaning you pay twice.

As a mother I know what its like to have your heart set on something. You want the cutest, you want the best, you want the softest, the safest, the most trendy.  Oh I've been there.  I wanted new bedding for my 2nd when she was born.  Sure I had bedding.  Really cheap plain bedding, but it was perfectly fine in every way.  But darn it, I wanted cute girly, frilly, oh and ah at bedding.  So I bought some.  It was expensive and guess what?  I didn't last.  Not that it would have mattered because funny thing, I had 6 boys after her.  What a waste of money that was.  Usually I can be reasoned with and I get the cheap but good stuff rather than the cute and expensive.  Every once in a while I make a stupid mistake and go with my "I gotta have that" Momma greed. I would rather get the Eddie Bauer really cute car seat rather than the one I am getting.  But I know it best if I get the cheaper uglier one.  And looking at my canal water car seat, I am thinking uglier to start out with might be the best idea anyway. 

Most of the baby stuff we are told we need we really don't need. We are made to feel bad if we don't provide these things for our babies.  But babies, they don't really care if you have a bouncy seat that turns into a rocking chair or if their baby swing plays 45 different lullabies or if their monitor looks like a state of the art toaster.  They just want to be held and loved and fed and changed.  At least by not buying all those fancy things you don't feel bad when the baby never uses it. 

So I am buying 2 new car seats that I will hopefully not have to replace till they expire. Course it depends on how soon I get pregnant.